Tag: GIT

Another bombshell has dropped on the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s poor security in its expensive Macs.

Jobs’ Mob’s software genii have apparently not bothered to upgrade the version of Git which comes bundled with OS X versions.

Git allows developers to manage source code repositories, keeping track of code changes from version to version. But the version in El Capitan is so old it exposes users to two possible attacks.

Security expert Rachel Kroll discovered that El Capitan comes bundled with Git 2.6.4. and the vulnerablities were found in all Git versions before 2.7.3.

The two vulnerabilities are heap-based buffer overflows, allow attackers to execute malicious code on the machine. The attacker can use the malicious code hidden in the repo to launch an attack on the Mac, compromise the system, and take control of the user’s device and all the Mac user’s Coldplay collection and pictures of their mum and cats will be vulnerable.

There is no way to fix it either. The bundled Git version can’t be updated without breaking Git support.

Writing in her bog Kroll wrote: “If you rely on machines like this, I am truly sorry. I feel for you. I wrote this post in an attempt to goad them [Apple] into action because this is affecting lots of people who are important to me. They are basically screwed until Apple deigns to deliver a patched git unto them.”

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is supporting new research to provide on-chip liquid cooling in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) devices and it looks like the technology could be easily adapted for CPUs and GPUs.

This has the potential to reduce the size of devices, allow for chip stacking, dispense with heat sinks and fans and significantly extend the life-span of chips.

What they managed to do was get rid of the heat sink atop the silicon die by moving liquid cooling just a few hundred microns away from the transistors.

The technique involves cutting microfluidic channels into the die of FPGA devices, which were chosen for the research and trials because of their flexible configuration and extensive use in the military.

This locates the cooling just microns from the problem, and even allows for the possibility of chip-stacking, which very few devices currently have the room or efficiency to achieve, given the necessity to dissipate heat from a central locus of adjacent chips.

The group successfully developed a standard demonstration test, including one for DARPA officials, in which a converted FPGA with bespoke Altera-supplied architecture operated, with no other cooling, at less than 24 degrees Celsius, and was compared to an analogous air-cooled device operating at 60 degrees Celsius.

On-chip liquid cooling also opens up the possibility for a new level of compactness in device design, which frequently has to use available surface space for dissipation purposes.